With no Mr Porter to turn to, Theo’s last four years at Vaizey College passed slowly and miserably. As he was driven out through the school gates for the final time, he swore he would never return. No way was he going to be one of those Old Vaizey Boys like his father who met up every year for reunion socials and came back for sports days and fundraisers. It would have been different if things with Kitty had been rosier. But she was still with Angus Thompson, they were still the school’s golden couple, and Theo had found out to his cost that it was far better for his mental health to simply keep out of her way. On his last day at Vaizey he hadn’t said goodbye to her or anyone else.

Now, though, he was determined to try and start afresh. He’d got a place at University College London, and he and his parents had just arrived at his hall of residence, not far from the British Museum. They’d helped him carry his suitcase and stereo up to his room and had been there all of five minutes when Theo noticed his father pulling his jacket sleeve up over his watch and surreptitiously checking the time. He felt the familiar flush of unease at the realisation that his parents wanted to be elsewhere. He actually wanted them to stay, though he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t left him many times before, throughout his school years, but this felt different. University was a big step.

From the corridor outside his room came the sound of two blokes yelling obscenities at each other. Theo cringed and glanced at his parents. It wasn’t that the swearing bothered him per se – he’d heard far worse at school, often directed at himself – but watching his parents flash their fake smiles and speak a little louder, making out they hadn’t heard, caused his anxiety levels to rise. They behaved the same way on the mornings after their own rows, acting as if nothing had happened. They were so proper most of the time, but when they were drunk they dropped all their airs and graces and swore like troopers, ignoring all the rules of acceptable behaviour that they’d drummed into him his whole life. The nasty, bitter arguments he’d witnessed at La Grande Belle had recurred with depressing frequency during subsequent exeats and holidays, but no one ever mentioned them and it was clear he was expected to carry on as if everything was fine. Theo had hoped that the three of them would get closer as he got older, that he’d be treated more as an equal and would no longer feel so nervous or unwelcome in their company. But it had been many years now since he’d felt comfortable running to his mother for a hug or speaking plainly about his emotions, and here he was at eighteen feeling increasingly ill at ease in their company.

His mother squeezed past the desk in her royal blue Laura Ashley frock and stared down at the street below. ‘Good job you’ve got this double-glazing.’ She tapped a slender knuckle on the window. ‘Of course it looks absolutely ghastly, but it’ll keep out some of the noise.’

‘Yes.’

‘Quite a nice spot though, really. Handy.’ She smiled.

Handy for what, Theo wasn’t sure, but he nodded anyway.

His mother looked back at him as if at a loss for what to say. She sighed and clasped her hands in front of her.

‘We are going to be late, Stella.’ His father widened his eyes, as if this were code. ‘Besides, Theo probably wants to dive into his books or whatever it is students do all day.’

Theo clenched his jaw. His dad would not let it rest. A year ago, when he’d been filling out the application form at the kitchen table, his father had stopped en route to the fridge. ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering, Theodore,’ he’d boomed. ‘We’ll have you behind a desk in Villiers House in no time, and you don’t need a fancy degree to do that, not when it’s the Montgomery name above the door.’ He’d huffed. ‘A Vaizey education has always been perfectly sufficient, as your grandfather and your great-grandfather and myself have all demonstrated.’

Theo’s insides had churned. ‘Actually, Dad, I have thought about it and I would really like to go to university.’

‘Anything to delay a hard day’s graft, is that it?’

‘No. I just like the idea of getting really good at something, becoming an expert.’ He was determined not to work with his dad or for the family business and he knew that the only way to ensure that was to do a degree and then follow his own path.

His dad had stopped rummaging for the bottle of tonic and looked in his direction. ‘An expert, eh? Oh good God! Don’t tell me your bloody mother has finally managed to bend your ear about the law or, God forbid, medicine! Ghastly profession, full of egos and long shifts. Don’t listen to her, she’s as thick as mince, doesn’t understand the business at all!’

Theo sat up straight. ‘It’s nothing to do with Mum.’ He felt his cheeks colour, hating his inability to stand up for his mum in the face of his dad’s relentless jibes. ‘It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.’ He took a deep breath and then blurted it out. ‘I want to study social science and social policy.’

His father laughed. ‘You want to study what?’

‘Social policy. It’s about looking at social movements and ways to address social problems, help society. A lot of people that study it go on to be policy makers all over the world.’ He grew quieter as his confidence ebbed.

His dad pivoted and placed his hands on his waist. His chin jutted sideways, which was a sure sign he was angry. ‘Social problems, eh?’ He gave a cold, hollow laugh. ‘And tell me, Theo, what social problems have you ever encountered?’

‘I... I...’

‘I can hear it now.’ His father guffawed and adopted a falsetto voice that made Theo’s stomach bunch. ‘I want to change the world! Even though I have only ever known the bloody best education, an education offered to the top ten per cent!’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘They’ll laugh you out of town, boy!’

Theo’s mind was racing. It was precisely because he’d seen the ten per cent in action that he wanted to do something that might help the other ninety per cent, but he kept this to himself.

His father returned his attention to the fridge. ‘Just remember who pays for your education, boy. Social policy, over my dead body! I want to hear no more about it.’ He grabbed the bottle of tonic, slammed the door and whistled as he made his way back to the drawing room.

This encounter had been followed by a tense week during which his parents weren’t speaking to each other and neither appeared to be speaking to him. The impasse had ended when his mother had called to him casually from her bedroom. He stood at the door, inhaling the cigarette smoke that encircled her in a pungent cloud, her aqua silk housecoat spread around her on the bed like a pond. She narrowed her eyes at him and placed the novel she was reading face down on the bed. ‘I’ve had a word with your father, darling. You can go to university if you want, but you’ll have to study engineering, not social work or whatever it is you were on about. That’s Daddy’s condition, otherwise he won’t pay. He says at least engineering might be of some use to the company.’

Engineering! Theo’s heart sank. But it was better than nothing. And what mattered more than anything was that his mum had stuck up for him. That meant a lot. ‘Thank you, Mum.’ He smiled as he backed out of the room.

The blokes outside his uni bedroom had finally moved elsewhere and there was a sudden hush. His father coughed and rocked on his heels. ‘As I said, we really can’t be late, Stella. And Theo doesn’t want us to hang around, do you?’

‘No. I’m fine. I... I don’t want to make you late.’

‘If you’re absolutely sure, darling?’ His mother quickly acquiesced, just as she always did. ‘I feel like we should stay and help you unpack your clothes or put up a poster or something?’ She waved her hand limply towards the ceiling.

‘I don’t have that many clothes and I’m good for posters, thanks.’ He scanned the blank white walls of his tiny room.

‘Well, look...’ His mother grabbed her cream pashmina from the back of the chair by the desk, gave a nod to her husband and smiled thinly. ‘You have our number of course and it’s not like we are far away!’ She laughed. ‘Call if you need anything, anything at all.’

He nodded. If anyone were to listen in on the conversations he had with his parents, they’d probably be touched at how loving his mum and dad sounded. What they wouldn’t pick up on, though, were the stolen glances, the sighs, the hurried tone and the awkward pauses. It was these that spoke loudest to Theo.

After shaking his father’s hand and accepting his mother’s fleeting kiss on his cheek, he waved them goodbye and flopped down onto his bed. He noted how confined his room was and how bland. Actually, though, he didn’t mind that. He was almost looking forward to being on his own in the middle of London, an invisible figure among the crowds, one of many, with no one to single him out as a loner, a weirdo. Almost subconsciously, he reached inside the neck of his sweatshirt and ran his finger over the fishing fly, pinned there.

Shivering, he felt suddenly cold and rolled himself into a sausage within the coverless duvet. Finally his time was his own: no bell was going to call him to study, to go to lessons or to have supper. He lay on the bare mattress and fell sleep.

A couple of hours later he was woken by a knock on his door. Startled, he took a sharp breath and quickly disentangled his feet from the duvet. He opened the door to find a tall, skinny, dark-haired boy with a bulky rucksack over his right shoulder and a toothy grin on his face.

The boy beamed at him. ‘I’m your next-door neighbour,’ he said, as if this were grounds for some special connection.

Theo thought of the countless boys he’d roomed next to at Vaizey – none had ever smiled at him like this. He looked at him nervously, wondering what he wanted, then dropped his gaze, waiting for the inevitable snide comment. None came. ‘Right. I’m Theo,’ he eventually offered.

‘Did you say Cleo?’ The boy took a step forward and squinted earnestly at Theo’s face.

‘Cleo?’ Theo sprayed his laughter. ‘Do I look like a Cleo?’

‘No!’ The boy laughed. ‘I just thought that was what you said. I’m from Wigan!’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I don’t know, man, I’m just freaking out!’ He ran his fingers through his wiry hair. ‘I’m in London and this is scary shit!’

Theo laughed. ‘Well, I’ve lived not far from here my whole life, when I wasn’t away at school, and I can assure you you have nothing to be scared of.’

‘Thanks, Cleo.’ The boy smiled, showing his large teeth. ‘I’m Spud, by the way.’

‘And I’m Theo.’ They exchanged another smile. ‘Is Spud your Christian name?’

‘Kind of. My surname is Edwards and it started as King Edwards when I got to secondary school and within a year it was Potato Boy, and then Spud, and that stuck – even my parents call me it!’ He chuckled. ‘My school friends call my mum and dad Ma and Pa Spud – it’s become a bit of a joke.’

‘Spud it is then.’ Theo hovered in the doorway, wishing he had a similarly witty anecdote about Ma and Pa Montgomery. He was badly rehearsed in what to do next, how to chat, though he did know that neither the weather nor sport were the answer. ‘Anyway, I better unpack or something.’ He pointed to the suitcase on the desk.

‘Do you want to go the student union and get a beer later?’ Spud asked, almost casually but with a flicker to his eyelid that suggested nerves. ‘I mean, only if you haven’t already got anything else planned. I’m not being pushy and I’m not trying to get invited, I just thought...’ He ran out of steam, clearly flustered.

Theo nodded. ‘Sure. A beer would be good.’ He tried to sound cool, hoping to hide the explosion of nerves and excitement.

And just like that, Theodore Montgomery made a friend. A proper friend of his own age.

Holding their warm pints, served in plastic glasses, and with Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ playing on the jukebox, the two took seats at the edge of the union bar. The furniture was dark, cheap and tatty and the walls, painted a deep red were covered with posters.

‘So what are you studying?’

‘Engineering. You?’

‘Economics,’ Spud answered with pride. ‘Have you got brothers and sisters?’

‘No, just me.’ In the four years since that horrible night when he’d made the shocking discovery about his half-brother, Alexander, not a word had been said about him, and Theo hadn’t told a soul. It wasn’t that he dwelt on it, exactly, but it came into his mind sometimes. He felt nauseous at the thought of his dad cheating and lying to his mum. ‘What about you?’

‘Two sisters. One older, married with three kids, and one younger, still at school.’

Theo couldn’t imagine having that many people in his life.

‘We’re just hoping my older one stops having sprogs and my younger one doesn’t start too soon. Already at Christmas my nan has to sit at the table on the laundry basket with a cushion on top, and last year my cousin ate his lunch standing up!’ He laughed. ‘My mum says at this rate she’ll be doing two sittings.’

Theo stared at him, trying and failing to picture the world he described.

‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ Spud kept the questions coming.

‘No!’ Theo laughed, despite himself. He tried to ignore the pull of longing in his gut as his thoughts turned to Kitty. ‘You?’

‘Nah.’ Spud sighed. ‘I saw a couple of girls at school, but nowt serious.’

‘I liked a girl at school, but she had a boyfriend, so...’ Theo shrugged.

‘Well, you need to find a girl here and erase the memory of her!’ Spud laughed. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Kitty.’ He swallowed. Even saying her name out loud felt like a big deal.

Spud raised his pint. ‘To erasing Kitty!’

They clinked their plastic glasses.

‘So you’re from London?’ Spud put his pint on the table and rubbed his hands together, whether with excitement or nerves it was hard to tell.

‘Yes, but I went to school in Dorset.’

‘Boarding school?’

‘Yes.’ Theo smiled. ‘It would have been one hell of a commute if I was a day boy.’

Spud laughed loudly and Theo joined in. That was funny. I can do funny!

‘I’ve never met anyone that went to boarding school.’

‘You have now.’ Theo sipped the pint. It was horribly bitter, left a nasty aftertaste and made him feel gassy. It would take some getting used to.

‘God, living without your parents and being with your mates, it sounds mint. Was it like a party every night? Girls having pillow fights, midnight snacks, smoking out of the window?’ Spud sat forward eagerly.

Theo gave a dry laugh. ‘Not for me. I hated it, I really did.’

‘Why?’

Theo considered his response, knowing how people feared the contagion of weird. ‘I didn’t like a lot of the people there. Some of them were right bastards.’ He liked how easily he could talk to Spud. His new friend’s kindly nature and their liberal consumption of booze made it possible.

Spud nodded. ‘I suppose there are always going to be bastards. The trick is to avoid the wankers.’

‘Yep.’ He nodded. ‘So what’s Wigan like?’

Spud shrugged. ‘Like anywhere else, I s’pose. I’ve never lived anywhere else, mind you. I mean, not like London! Nothing’s like this place!’ He giggled. ‘We’ve got a good football team, a canal, shit shops, great pubs and even better clubs if you know where to look. People are friendly and that’s about it. It’s struggled since we’ve started losing the mines.’

‘I’d hate to go down a mine. Can’t imagine it – dark and cold.’ He shivered.

Spud eyed him over the rim of his second pint. ‘I guess most people would hate to go down into the cold and dark, but when that’s the thing that’s going to put bread on the table, you’d be surprised what folk’ll do. My dad’s a miner – like my grandad before him.’

Theo felt his face colour. He hadn’t meant to be rude.

‘I’ve never met anyone like you, Theodore.’ Spud smiled. ‘Have you ever been abroad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever been on a plane?’

‘Yes!’

‘Have you ever bought a single fag from an ice-cream van?’

‘No!’ It was Theo’s turn to laugh.

‘Have your mum and dad got a car?’

‘Yes.’

‘What kind?’

‘My dad has a vintage Aston Martin.’

Spud nearly choked on his pint. He laughed and slapped the table. ‘You, Theo, are the poshest person I have ever met.’

‘I don’t know if that’s a compliment!’ Theo pulled a face.

‘It is what it is, my friend. It is what it is.’ Spud shook his head and prepared to return to the bar for their refills.

*

That beer was to be the first of countless pints Theo and Spud drank together over the coming months, in pubs, bars and clubs across London. By the end of their second term, Theo had more than got used to the taste. Tonight he and Spud had gone out together as usual, and, as sometimes happened, they’d become separated a little after midnight.

Theo grabbed the hand of the girl he’d been talking to for the last half-hour and started running. ‘Come on!’

‘I can’t keep up!’ She giggled. ‘I’m wearing heels!’

‘Then take them off!’ he yelled through his laughter.

The girl did just that, hopping, mid run, from one foot to the other and gathering her shoes into her hand. She gripped them like a pointy bowling ball and with Theo pulling her along she zigzagged down the pavement in just her tights, her fur bomber jacket and her blue suede mini skirt.

‘Why are we running?’ she asked between more giggles.

‘Because I’m pissed and it seemed like a good idea!’

As they rounded the top of Inverness Street and turned right into Camden High Street he slowed and bent double, laughing loudly while he tried to catch his breath.

‘You are fucking insane!’ She laughed loudly too, then stood on tiptoes, reached up and kissed him full on the mouth. Her hand snaked under his shirt to find his solid chest. ‘Did we really just run away from my mates?’

He looked back up the street. ‘It would appear so.’

‘Why did we do that?’ She laughed.

‘Because I wanted to get you on your own.’ He grinned.

‘You nutcase.’ She kissed him again. ‘So where now?’ she whispered suggestively.

‘My room?’

‘Sounds like a plan.’ She giggled some more and gave him a coy look from beneath her heavily mascaraed lashes.

The two walked with their arms across each other’s shoulders, picking their way through litter, knotted black bin bags left underneath trees, prostrate clubbers and some market traders unloading their transit vans ready for their Sunday morning stalls. It was a typical Saturday night, or had been. Theo loved this time, just before dawn broke, the transition point between a good night coming to an end and a good day just beginning. They wobbled away into the dawn, stopping to snog where and when the fancy took them.

Theo put the key into the door of his building and turned to the girl. ‘Ah, I should probably mention that it’s my student room and I am not strictly allowed guests, plus my half-wit mate, who might or not have made it home before me, might be crashed out on my bed.’

‘You share a room?’ she asked, clearly unimpressed.

‘No, we don’t share a room, but he tends to fall wherever is closest when he’s pissed. He’s not... how should I say it... boundary conscious.’

‘Right.’ She looked at him quizzically.

Theo paused and turned back to her. ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

‘Mitzi!’ She tittered.

‘And I’m Rollo.’

‘Rollo!’ She laughed again. Theo prayed that she was really high and not just really stupid.

His room was a mess, although this was standard. It was no longer the kind of mess that could be fixed with a quick whizz round with a duster and a vacuum cleaner – it was way past that. The room was grubby and disorganised. A poster for the movie Halloween hung down from the sloping ceiling, its corner displaying a strip of yellowing Sellotape. Books and takeaway containers littered every surface and his bedside table was covered with the detritus of discarded joints, Rizla packets with the corners torn off to make roaches, thin strands of tobacco and an overflowing ashtray. An abandoned cereal bowl sat on the windowsill with a ring of sour milk clinging to the insides and soggy cornflakes stuck to the rim. Empty Sol bottles with shrivelled wedges of lime were lined up like skittles on the floor around the skirting board, and the air was stale with the tang of cigarette smoke and old food.

Theo took in the expression of disgust on Mitzi’s face. ‘It’s the maid’s day off.’

‘Day off?’ Mitzi curled her top lip. ‘I think she wants firing.’

As Theo looked at her, at the dark rings of kohl around her eyes and her vacant stare, an image of Kitty popped into his head. Beautiful, clean, sparkling Kitty. There was a moment of awkward contemplation, in which he lost enthusiasm for her company.

‘Do you know what, Mitzi?’ He spoke calmly, rubbing at his stubble. ‘I think we should call it a night. You shouldn’t want to be here in this grubby room, with someone who’s dragged you from your mates. You deserve better.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ She glared at him. ‘You march me back to this shithole and now you’re dumping me?’

‘I’m not dumping you. I don’t know you! And look, please let me pay for your cab, to wherever.’ He reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet, peeling off a ten-pound note.

‘What the fuck? You think you can pay me off?’ she shouted as she slipped her red-heeled shoes back onto her now grimy stockinged feet.

‘No! I’m just trying to be gentlemanly.’

‘Gentlemanly? You are weird as shit is what you are!’

‘So I’ve been told.’ He blinked, sobering a little now and wanting nothing more than for her to leave so he could go to sleep. His messy bed had never looked more inviting.

‘Morning. I think.’ Spud walked past Theo’s open door in a striped towelling dressing gown that was open, revealing his green underpants. ‘Just off to the loo.’ He scratched his hairy chest and yawned. ‘God, don’t remember much about the night. I think I lost you after Dingwalls. Are you coming in or going out, Theo?’

‘Theo?’ Mitzi screeched. ‘You told me your name was Rollo!’ This subterfuge was apparently the final straw for Mitzi, who snatched the ten-pound note from his hand and stomped off in her red heels. She turned at the end of the corridor to flip him the bird. ‘Dickhead!’ she yelled, loud enough to wake anyone who might have been sleeping off the night before.

‘My bad,’ Theo mumbled as he sank down onto his bed and closed his eyes.

‘She seemed nice,’ Spud called from the doorway. ‘Your parents are going to love her! Are you thinking a spring wedding?’

Theo laughed despite his tiredness and turned on to his side. He needed sleep.

*

With Def Leppard’s ‘Animal’ blaring out of the stereo in his room, Theo lay in the slightly rusted bath down the corridor. It was as good a remedy as any for his post-Mitzi hangover. The cold tap dripped constantly, leaving a mottled brown residue on the old enamel, but he had perfected a manoeuvre whereby he could turn on the hot tap with his toes, allowing him to languish in the bath for hours.

Spud banged on the bathroom door, pulling him from his daydreams. ‘How much longer are you going to be in there?’ he yelled. ‘I need a shit!’

Theo laughed. ‘Getting out now!’

‘Cool. Wanna come out and get pissed? Hair of the dog?’

Theo laughed at his mate’s favourite and only suggestion when it came to socialising. ‘Oh really, and forgo our usual seats at the opera? If you insist! Let’s go via the takeaway first.’

An hour later they were both sitting on the low wall outside their nearest kebab shop. Theo bit into the kebab and simultaneously took a swig from his can of pop.

‘So who was that girl night last night? Thought you were going to see the French one you met?’

Theo shook his head, ‘No, lost her number, kind of on purpose.’ He pulled a face.

‘I can’t keep up.’ Spud laughed and dug a small plastic fork into his polystyrene punnet loaded with heavily salted chips. ‘Seems you are doing quite well in your quest to erase Kitty.’

‘I was,’ Theo paused, ‘and then last night, I looked at Mitzi and thought about Kitty and I just wanted to be on my own.’

‘A mere setback my friend.’ Spud chuckled.

‘I hope so, my social life is all I have to look forward to, bloody engineering!’ he bit his kebab.

‘I like my lectures!’

‘It’s all right for you, you love your subject. I hate mine!’

‘So switch! You’ve only done two terms. Ben on the floor below us swapped from medicine to biology, it was easy and now he’s happy. I mean, you’d probably have to work hard to catch up, but you work hard anyway. It’s the answer. Life is too short, Theo old son, do what makes you happy!’

‘I wish it was that straightforward,’ Theo said with his mouth full, ‘but my dad would go crazy.’ It was a miracle he was at university at all and not chained to a desk in Villiers House.

Spud made as if he was answering a phone. ‘Oh hello, yes. Right, I’ll tell him.’ He theatrically mimed replacing the receiver. ‘That was the Universe on the phone. It said, “Tell your mate that this is his life, not his dad’s, and he needs to do what makes him happy!”’

‘You make it sound easy.’ Theo took another bite, he was famished.

‘I think it’s as easy or as hard as you want it to be.’

‘For you maybe. What would your dad say if you changed course?’ He licked his greasy fingers.

Spud held his gaze. ‘My dad doesn’t care what I study, he just wants me to be happy and he is beyond chuffed that his son has got a place at university. It’s a big deal for us. I’m the first ever on either side of the family to go and not just to any university – UCL, in that London!’ He was making fun of himself, but Theo knew his humour masked a very real truth and he envied Spud that.